Beattie, Ellen

Ellen Beattie

Ellen Beattie is Senior Director, Program Quality & Innovation with the International Rescue Committee (IRC), where she oversees a portfolio of integration programs for New Americans across 25 US cities, among them economic empowerment, health & wellness and citizenship, and including programs for asylum-seeking families. Prior to joining the IRC in 2003, she worked in community development with the United Nations Development Program, World Food Program, among others. Ellen holds a B.A. from Rice University, an M.S. in Regional Development Planning from Los Andes University and studied Development Sociology at Justus-Liebig University.

Yen, Gloria

Gloria Yen

Gloria Yen is the Director of the New American Welcome Center at the University YMCA. Over the past 3 years, the Welcome Center has launched innovative programming in the areas of resource navigation, immigration legal services, and immigrant advocacy as it coordinates multi-sector integration planning efforts to lay a foundation for equitable access, economic opportunity, and meaningful belonging. The Center’s impact has been recognized by: Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Outstanding Achievement Award (2020 Champaign County), Entrepreneurial Excellence: Social Venture Award (2019 Champaign County Economic Development Corporation), and Community Impact Award (2019 Junior League of Champaign-Urbana).

Vinent, Isabel

Isabel Vinent

Isabel Vinent is an immigrant from Honduras, daughter of immigrants from Cuba, and wife of an immigrant from El Salvador. At a very early age, 14, she discovered her vocation for social justice in rural Honduras. She earned a Ph.D. in Feminist Popular Education in Spain and has almost 40 years of experience, working with a myriad of grassroots organizations (youth, indigenous, immigrant, womxn, rural) in the US, Mexico, and Central America. She has transitioned from youth organizer to community educator and researcher to immigrant rights advocate, trying to apply Paulo Freire’s praxis into different contexts and fieldwork experiences. She joined FLIC in 2008.

Vazquez, Laura

Laura Vazquez

Laura Vazquez is Associate Director of Immigrant Integration at UnidosUS (formerly the National Council of La Raza). Vazquez works with Affiliates to expand and sustain their immigration legal services programs. Prior to UnidosUS, Laura served as a constituent caseworker for Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton, assisting D.C. residents with their immigration applications. As a Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute Fellow, she monitored efforts to address laws passed in 1996 that impacted immigrants. Her background includes research on Mexican migration to the United States and the role of nonprofits in advocating for Latino immigrants.Ms. Vazquez holds a master’s degree in Latin American studies from the University of California, San Diego and a bachelor’s in political science and Spanish from Kenyon College.

Van Wallace, Sue

Sue Van Wallace

Sue Van Wallace is the President and CEO of the Wallace H. Coulter Foundation. The Wallace H. Coulter Foundation was founded in 2000, by the late Wallace H. Coulter, to fund improvements in health care through medical research and engineering.  Ms. Van is the former CFO and an Executive VP of the Coulter Corporation.  She worked with Mr. Coulter for 23 years and also managed his personal assets. Upon his death in 1998, Ms. Van became the sole Trustee of the Wallace H. Coulter Trust. The Foundation was then established in 2000.  Ms. Van resides in Miami, FL.

Tirona, Marissa

Marissa Tirona

Marissa Tirona serves as president of Grantmakers Concerned with Immigrants and Refugees (GCIR). Previously, she was a program officer at the Ford Foundation, where she managed a $225 million portfolio as part of the Building Institutions and Networks (BUILD) initiative. Before joining Ford in 2017, Marissa led the Blue Shield of California Foundation’s programmatic, policy, and grantmaking efforts to address, prevent, and ultimately end domestic violence and promote health equity throughout the state. Marissa currently serves on the boards of Change Elemental and Sadie Nash Leadership Project. She holds a J.D. from Santa Clara University School of Law, is a member of the California State Bar, and has a B.A. in English literature with a concentration in women’s studies from Swarthmore College.

Silva, Astrid

Astrid Silva

Astrid Silva arrived in Nevada from Mexico with her family at the age of 5.  In 2006, she graduated from the magnet program at Advanced Technologies Academy, and later received three Associates degrees from College of Southern Nevada and her Bachelors degree in History/Pre-Law from Nevada State College. In 2009, an encounter with an unlikely ally Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid lead to a deeper involvement in the politics surrounding the DREAM Act and became the poster child for the legislation in her home state of Nevada. She was named Youth Immigrant of the Year for the American Immigration Council in 2014, was named a rising Civil Rights leader by the Los Angeles Times and most recently delivered the first Spanish language Democratic response to President Trump’s first speech to Congress in 2017. Silva is now the executive director of Dream Big Nevada.

Rendón, Eréndira

Eréndira Rendón

Eréndira Rendón is the Vice President of Immigration Advocacy and Defense Project at The Resurrection Project. Rendón has served as the organization’s lead strategist and manager on local and state-wide campaigns impacting the lives of immigrants, playing a leading role in the successful passage of many pro-immigrant legislations in Illinois including Driver’s Licenses for the undocumented and the renewal of Illinois’ All Kids healthcare program. Rendón is an undocumented immigrant with DACA protection from Oaxaca, Mexico. She is a graduate of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and the Civic Leadership Academy at the University of Chicago.

Norouzi, Roxana

Roxana Norouzi

Roxana Norouzi  has over a decade of experience in advocacy and social justice work with immigrant and refugee populations. She has been involved with OneAmerica since 2009 , where she built and developed a strategy to improve education for immigrant children and families through local and state policy advocacy, community organizing, and leadership development with parents and youth.Roxana is a faculty instructor at the University of Washington in the School of Public Health where she teaches community development. Roxana is the past Board President of the Seattle Globalist, a global to local news media platform and serves as Vice-President of the Children’s Alliance Board of Directors. From 2014 to 2016, Roxana was an appointee to the City of Seattle’s Immigrant and Refugee Commission and currently is a member of the King County Best Starts for Kids Children and Youth Advisory Board.

Navarrete, Karla Patricia

Karla Patricia Navarrete

Karla Patricia Navarrete is a first-generation Chicana, daughter of a single mother who migrated from Mexico. Ms. Navarrete grew up in National City, CA. Her interest in immigration law was sparked by her proximity to the San Diego/Tijuana border. She graduated from UCLA in 2006. She attended Loyola Law School where she graduated in 2012. As an attorney, Ms. Navarrete worked at the National Immigration Law Center (NILC) as a DACA Fellow. Since June 2014, Ms. Navarrete has worked for the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights (CHIRLA). In her current role as Interim Legal Services Director, she leads a team of fifty legal staff. She has been part of the development and implementation of the legal department by helping build the capacity of her team. She also coordinates pro-bono efforts and manages the client intake process. She spends her free time with her two young daughters exploring Southern California.

Milkman, Ruth

Ruth Milkman

Ruth Milkman is a sociologist of labor and labor movements who has written on a variety of topics involving work and organized labor in the United States, past and present. Her most recent books are Immigrant Labor and the New Precariat (Polity, 2020) and On Gender, Labor and Inequality (Illinois, 2016). Her early research focused on the impact on U.S. women workers of economic crisis and war in the 1930s and 1940s. She went on to study the restructuring of the U.S. automobile industry and its impact on workers and their union in the 1980s and 1990s; in that period she also analyzed the labor practices of Japanese-owned factories in California. More recently she has written extensively about low-wage immigrant workers, analyzing their employment conditions as well as the dynamics of immigrant labor organizing. She co-authored a 2013 study of California’s paid family leave program, focusing on its impact on employers and workers.

Lopez, Mario H.

Mario H. Lopez

Mario H. Lopez is a  veteran political communications strategist and advocate. He has held several positions with Republican officials, including on Capitol Hill and as a presidential appointee of George W. Bush.Mario authored “Hijacking Immigration?” a critical report on the Tanton Network. Washington D.C. newspaper The Hill profiled Mario in 2018, with heavy focus on his immigration advocacy and efforts countering the Tanton Network. Mario has developed and executed large-scale communications campaigns, including a 2020 bilingual digital audio campaign advocating for Temporary Protected Status for refugees and migrants. Since 2008, he has served as President of the Hispanic Leadership Fund, an advocacy organization that promotes Liberty, opportunity, and prosperity.

Lane-Arellano, Raquel

Raquel Lane-Arellano

Raquel Lane-Arellano is the Policy Manager for the Colorado Immigrant Rights Coalition (CIRC). Raquel is a first-generation student and graduated from Stanford University in 2017 as a Chicanx/Latinx major. She moved back to Colorado to empower her community and increase access to opportunity for all. In the 2018 midterm election, Raquel worked as a Family Defender Field Coordinator with CIRC leading civic engagement efforts in Aurora to promote sanctuary city policies and energize immigrant and POC voters. She was also an aide to Senator Moreno in the Joint Budget Committee where she worked to create positive legislation for her home district. As Policy Manager at CIRC, she hopes to continue collaboratively crafting better realities and futures for the Latinx and immigrant community.

Katz, Nick

Nick Katz

Nick Katz serves as CASA’s Legal Director, overseeing a team of dedicated attorneys and advocates providing direct services to community members in the areas of immigration, employment and housing law. In this role, Nick also advises senior CASA leadership on a wide range of policy issues, campaigns and political engagements. Nick has been deeply involved in CASA’s efforts to establish and grow universal representation programs for detained immigrants in Maryland and Virginia. Prior to working at CASA, Nick was a supervising attorney and the Administrative Relief Services Coordinator at Make the Road New York (MRNY), where he was responsible for overseeing the organization’s legal services under the Action NYC program. Nick graduated cum laude from the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law, where he was a student intern in the Kathryn O. Greenberg Immigration Justice Clinic. Prior to law school Nick was a Peace Corps Volunteer serving in China.

Kamasaki, Charles

Charles Kamasaki

Charles Kamasaki is Senior Cabinet Advisor of UnidosUS, formerly National Council of La Raza (NCLR). In this capacity he serves as a senior member of the management team at UnidosUS, the nation’s largest Hispanic civil rights and advocacy organization representing nearly 300 affiliates — community-based organizations that serve millions of Hispanic Americans annually. In addition to his advisory role on a variety of substantive and institutional issues, he has authored, co-authored, and supervised the preparation of dozens of policy and research reports, journal articles, and editorials, testified frequently at Congressional and administrative hearings, coordinated pro bono litigation and legal analysis, and represented the organization at research and policy conferences and symposia. Charles is the author of Immigration Reform: The Corpse That Will Not Die.

Jayes-Green, Jonathan

Jonathan Jayes-Green

Jonathan Jayes-Green, Vice President of Programs at Marguerite Casey Foundation. They are the former National Latinx Outreach Director for the Elizabeth Warren for President Campaign, where they focused on connecting the movement and the campaign in service of building big, structural change for Latinx and immigrant communities. Jonathan is also the Co-Founder and former Founding Director of the UndocuBlack Network (UBN), Jonathan has served in the Office of the Governor of Maryland as the liaison to the Caribbean and Latinx communities and worked on statewide campaigns and ballot measures. Jonathan has been the recipient of the Haas Jr. Outstanding LGBT Leadership on Immigration Award, American Immigration Council’s Immigrant Youth Achievement Award, the Hispanic Heritage Foundation’s Inspira Award and the Frederick Douglass 200 List by the Frederick Douglass Family Initiatives and American University’s Antiracist Research and Policy Center.

Ibrahim, Lola

Lola Ibrahim

Lola Ibrahim  has served for almost two decades in the nonprofit sector in various capacities including direct service, arts-based activism, community engagement, human rights, gender, and social justice philanthropy. Lola holds a B.A. from the Schar School of Policy and Government at George Mason University and an M.A. from Harvard University where she researched the ways in which migration and internal displacement impact urban centers and political cultures. She has a particular interest in the intersection of immigration and racial justice—as well as the complexities of diasporic and transcultural identities in a global era where migration is becoming the principal trend of the future. She believes that through narrative and policy shifts, we can bridge social divides and open up new pathways for understanding and solidarity. Lola lives and works in New York City.

Guevara, Esperanza

Esperanza Guevara

Esperanza is originally from the San Fernando Valley and spent her teenage years in the Imperial Valley, California, raised by parents who immigrated to the U.S. from Mexico in the ‘80s. With the support of mentors and her family, Esperanza received a scholarship to attend Stanford University. After graduating in 2012, she accepted a year-long fellowship to serve as a young ambassador in Germany. Esperanza has also worked as a staffer on Capitol Hill where she co-founded Latinas in the House. Prior to joining CHIRLA, Esperanza worked on campaigns in Florida and Los Angeles, as well as served as a field representative for Congressman Jimmy Gomez. 

Gonzales, Sergio

Sergio Gonzales

Sergio Gonzales brings a wealth of experience in both government and campaigns as the Hub’s Executive Director. Prior to joining the Hub, Sergio served as Senior Policy Advisor to U.S. Senator Kamala Harris (D-CA) on immigration, homeland security, government affairs, labor and LGTBQ issues. Sergio was also Senior Policy Advisor to U.S. Senator Michael Bennet (D-CO) and helped craft the gang of eight’s immigration reform bill in 2013. Sergio also served as Regional Director for Secretary Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign where he oversaw fourteen states and was Colorado Political Director for President Obama’s 2012 re-election campaign and for Sen. Bennet’s race in 2010. He originally began his career as a social case worker helping teens to emancipate from the foster care system.

García Torres, Leani

Leani García Torres

Leani García Torres is the Associate Director of State & Local Initiatives at New American Economy (NAE), a bipartisan research and advocacy organization making the economic case for smart, sensible immigration policies in cities, states, and nationally. At NAE, she is responsible for managing and expanding the organization's state-level policy portfolio and advocacy efforts. Leani has more than seven years of experience working on policy initiatives across the United States, Latin America, and the Caribbean. She holds an MA from New York University's Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies and a BA in Political Science from California State University, Long Beach.